GC 2009: Aliens vs. Predator Preview

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Rebellion reveals the third and final species and exclusive first details on multiplayer.

By Martin Robinson

When it comes to delivering some bang for your buck, it's unlikely a game will be able to compete with Aliens vs. Predator anytime soon. Delivering campaigns from the perspective of three different species, it's effectively three games in one box. Actually, make that four – alongside the cavalcade of single player glee there's a comprehensive set of multiplayer features as well, the first details of which we learn on our trip to developer Rebellion's Oxford studios. 'We've even included a free trip to the Bahamas' quips lead designer Alex Moore, who comically slumps at the none-too-enviable task he's set himself and the team.

The Marine sections are both bombastic and tense.

For the uninitiated, here's a brief recap of the game's ambitious set-up; the story, or what little is known of it to date, sees the three species thrown together on one planet, and the game gives players all three viewpoints on a shared narrative. The Predator section shown to date casts flange-face as a Sam Fisher-style executioner, striking from trees enshrouding a Marine outpost. Like any respecting stealth game protagonist, the Predator deploys some devious tactics to dispose of his foes – from sneaking up behind a soldier and then ripping his head from its shoulders, spinal column and all, or via the more subtle approach of disarming the electrified gates and allowing the Aliens to enter and wreak their own brand of havoc.

For the Marines, some of the tropes of survival horror games have been borrowed to underline the vulnerability of their mere flesh and bone, with expert use of light and dark helping to deliver the scares. Patrolling a section of the colony recently ravaged by an alien attack, the motion sensor's beeps become more insistent as the aliens test the perimeter. There's the inevitable calm before the storm, and within seconds the area is plunged into darkness, with only the muzzle flare of the pulse rifle illuminating the swarm of xenomorphs. It's easily the most stirring section, with the tone of James Cameron's 1986 Aliens captured perfectly.

The multiplayer will likely tone down some of the Predator's abilities - though Rebellion is still working out the best approach.

If it's easy to view the Predator as an extraterrestrial Splinter Cell and the Marines as Halo through a survival horror filter, the Aliens sections are a little harder to pigeon hole. Our demo takes us to a maze of long industrial corridors within the colony, reminiscent of those that course the prison world of Alien 3's Fiorina (Fury 161). The viewpoint is low-slung and through a slight fish-eye lens, and when in motion it recreates the animalistic movements of the alien well.